“Pause the video here,” said Hana. The screen stopped on a frame showing the hero Watergss with her hands raised beneath a mountain of spinning water. “Can we get some of the viewers good at math to calcute how much weight she’s lifting with her magic? Look at the size of it…”

  “The official report says that her output increased because of the Returnee’s buffing magic,” said Hamlin, a guest analyst appearing on Hana’s broadcast.

  “I know what the official report says,” Hana snapped. “I don’t care about the why, I want to know just how big these buffs are. Can we find some recent footage of Watergss fighting without Princess Scale?”

  “Yeah. Computer guy, open up the file beled W-77 in the same folder,” said Hamlin.

  “My name’s Frank—”

  “Shut up, Computer Guy,” said Hana.

  “Hana we’ve been working together for seven years!” Frank wanted to cry. He diligently opened the folder and a video recording started to py. In the recording Watergss was shown pulling up and moving a fraction of the water compared to when she fought alongside Scale.

  “Yeah there’s just no way!” Hana jumped from her seat and ughed. “It’s not just the buff magic. It’s unreasonable. Watergss got stronger.”

  “But how much of this is her own efforts and how much is the buff magic?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Ideally we’d get the Princess on and measure spell outputs with and without her buffs, using a reliable mage.” Hana paused and frowned. “But she hasn’t been returning my calls.”

  “I wonder why~”

  “I don’t need your sass, Frank.”

  “I’m just saying, if she’s racially a dragon then her dragon form is her true form. So when you told her not to transform again—”

  “I know, dammit! It was a mistake.” Hana grumbled and looked at the camera with an aggrieved expression. “The chatters understand.”

  —We don’t actually

  —[Bald Emote] [Fire Emote] [Bald Emote]

  —imagine someone tells you to wear a mask because your face is scary lmao

  —lucky she didn’t eat you.

  —Eat? OwO

  —(Comment Deleted by Moderator)

  “I get it. I get it! Jeeze.” Hana sat down in her chair and spun around. “How about we move on to the bigger points.” The screen changed and an image of a small woman appeared with the text subtitled beneath her: ‘Portal?’

  “So her appearance finally leaked. Do we know her full name yet?” Hamlin asked.

  “Sarah Altiman. Russian sites released it an hour after her appearance went live.” Hana replied.

  “That’s… A little scary.”

  “Yeah. Russia has been afraid of her for a long time so makes sense they’d jump on doxxing her. Weird she has the same st name as both Watergss and the Princess…” Hana hid her smile from the camera. Some gossip needed appropriate time to stew first.

  “We know Watergss and Scale are sisters,” said Hamlin. “And we’ve known Portal got along well with Watergss for years…” Hamlin’s eyes narrowed as he pulled up the video of Watergss from earlier. “Doesn’t it look like something is shining on her finger here?”

  Slowly, like a snake swallowing prey, the media devoured the three strongest Awakeners whole. Nothing could remain hidden. Reactionary commentators recoiled at the idea of Portal and Watergss being in such a retionship, but the majority of the public approved. The sudden surge of fanart (and said fanart’s viewer counts) on certain websites helped serve as proof of that approval.

  The biggest change out of the ordeal, however, remained the sudden appearance of two new moons in the sky. The Awakener Association cimed it was the result of a Consteltion, but conspiracy theories started flooding in. Some even theorized that Watergss’s sudden strength increase had to do with the new moons. This theory gained particurly strong traction after a certain broadcaster cimed it was ‘unreasonable’ for the increase to be purely buff magic. The conspiracy went so far as to cim that Portal, in an effort to strengthen her wife, teleported two new moons to Earth.

  Scale stared at the ceiling and counted the fshes of light that blinked through her closed bedroom curtains. Those were the fshes of cameras coming from outside her home. Sarah wasn’t the only person who got doxxed, and now a fleet of reporters were camped outside Scale’s home.

  “Ah. This sucks so much.” Scale sighed and put her pillow over her face. She wasn’t in the best headspace to start with considering the meeting with her genocidal mother, and now she had to deal with harassment from the media. She kicked the bnkets and threw a small tantrum.

  “It’s karma.”

  “Lyss? When did you get here?” Scale pulled the pillow off her face to see her sister standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Sarah dropped me off. She’s got it easier than you. She has about thirty hideouts spread across the country and she can jump to a different one at any time.”

  “Tch.” Scale clicked her tongue.

  “Jealous?”

  “A little.”

  “Why don’t you move back into my apartment for a while?” Alyssa tried to keep a straight face but her crooked smile couldn’t hide from Scale’s astute vision.

  “You just want to tease me again, don’t you?” Scale’s eyes narrowed into slits as she threw her pillow. Alyssa ducked underneath the pillow projectile which promptly opened a hole in the opposite wall.

  “Oy! Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Please.” Scale scoffed and flipped her sister the bird. “I know your strength better than you do. My. Little. Contractee.”

  A vein bulged on Alyssa’s forehead. “You’ve been hiding for two days now and the paparazzi haven’t left. Are you just going to rot in here?”

  “That’s the pn.”

  “It’s a stupid pn. What happens when you run out of food?”

  “Ah. You’re under a misconception.” Scale stood up and formed a diagram of mana in the air. “Do you think the small human portions of food I’ve been eating could possibly sustain me? You’ve got some idea of my body’s true size, right?”

  Alyssa nodded. “I never really thought about that…”

  “You don’t think about many things, Lyss.”

  “Oy!”

  “Anyways, as I was saying,” Scale coughed into her fist. “I don’t actually sustain myself with the food in this world. I eat magic, and earth just happens to be sitting in the middle of one of the rgest mana streams I’ve seen. It’s why so many consteltions want a piece of it. I don’t need to eat food at all.”

  “So when you ate all that food at Belligrand…” Alyssa crushed the door trim her hand had been resting on.

  “Ah.” Scale realized her mistake.

  “Three. Million. Dolrs.”

  “Lyss, let’s just calm down here. After all, what’s a few million among sisters?”

  “Sarah, you listening?”

  “Of course.” A portal appeared at some point and Sarah’s face popped out of it.

  “I don’t think we can hurt her if we tried—”

  “Ah. Yeah you probably can’t.” Scale nodded. “So let’s just—”

  “Sarah, can you teleport her against her will?”

  Scale felt her blood go cold. Resisting spatial movements as intricate as Portal’s without hurting the caster would require exquisite control. If Scale didn’t want to give her sister in w a massive backsh then...

  Alyssa grinned like the devil. She could see it written on Scale’s face. “My. Little. Sister~ You wouldn’t want to hurt our cute Sarah, right?”

  “Lyss, let’s just calm down and talk this out like adults—”

  “Sarah. Should we teleport her into the nearest full septic tank?”

  “Alyssa! That’s too much,” said Sarah.

  “Ah!” Scale jumped. Sarah suddenly looked an awful lot like an angel in human form. Tears started to form in her eyes as she looked upon the goddess of mercy. This feeling was... Scale could only define it as love. “S-sister in w~”

  “We should just send her into the middle of those reporters, instead.” Sarah ughed.

  All the goodwill and love left Scale’s body in an instant. She didn't hesitate. There was no tell or forewarning. In one quick motion she grabbed Sarah’s shoulder through the portal and dragged her into the room with one arm while grabbing Alyssa with the other. Sarah and Alyssa were both wrapped in Scale’s arms like sushi rolls.

  “If I’m going down you’re both going down with me!” Scale had previously figured out some dramatic weaknesses to Portal’s ability and decided to abuse that knowledge now. She knew that anyone touching Portal couldn’t be moved by her power without Portal also being moved. With Sarah and Alyssa held firmly in Scale’s strong arms, the three of them were bound together through any potential teleports. This meant that even if they tried to jump away it wouldn't work. It also gave Scale time to apply the second half of her pn. With Portal in her hands, Scale could interfere with her sister-in-w’s mana directly, making any potential jump attempts rather undesirable. Scale wasn't great with controlling her magic, but she didn't need to control anything if she just relied on overwhelming Sarah's meridians while simultaneously healing her to prevent damage from accumuting!

  “Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait waiiiiiiiit!” Alyssa screamed when she realized, perhaps for the first time in her life, that pranks can have consequences.

  The headlines the next day showed an image of Scale (wearing fuzzy pajamas) dragging Watergss and Portal outside. It was followed by a grueling four hour interview in which the women showed their closeness by holding hands the entire time!

  “Sir, we've scheduled a meeting with the American Association. They’ve agreed to call the Returnee, but they said whether she comes to the meeting is entirely up to her.”

  “That’s probably the best we can do, huh?”

  “Based on her reputation she’ll probably come. I believe she can heal the young master.”

  “When’s the meeting?”

  “Tomorrow at eleven.”

  “How’s Yoru holding up?”

  “He’s excited, Sir. He says he’s a fan of the Returnee.”

  “Make sure he takes his medicine. We can’t have him having an episode.”

  “Of course, Sir.” The servant left the room afterwards, leaving his master alone in the hotel room. On the screen a video of the recent Gate clear continued on repeat.

  “Please let this work.” The master kneeled. He bowed towards the television and prayed with his whole heart.